George Manville Fenn (continued 10)
Reading edition
“Oh yes, yes!” he cried passionately; “believe me, dear Miriam, that I do. But I cannot plead my cause now before a third party.”
“The third party, as you term him, John Lister, has been and is to me as a dear brother; but I grant that it would be cruel to expect you to speak as we are. I will, then, be your counsellor.”
“No,” he exclaimed, holding out his hands imploringly, “you are my judge.”
“Heaven is your judge,” she said solemnly; and as she spoke I saw a change come over John Lister’s face. It was a mingling of awe, disappointment, and anger, for he read his sentence in her tones—“Heaven is your judge,” she repeated, “but I will not keep you in suspense.”
He joined his hands as he turned his back to me, but I could not help seeing his imploring act in the glass.
“John Lister, I have pleaded your cause ever since I received your first letter three months ago. You have asked my forgiveness for the past.”
“Yes, yes,” he whispered, gazing at her as if hanging on her lips for his life.
“And I forgive you—sincerely forgive you—as I pray Heaven to forgive the trespasses I have committed.”
“God bless you!” he whispered; “Miriam, you are an angel of goodness.”
“You ask me now to resume our old relations; to receive you as of old—in other words, John Lister, to become your wife.”
“Yes, yes,” he whispered hoarsely, as he bent before her, and in his eagerness now, he seemed to forget my presence, for he bent down upon one knee and took and kissed the hem of her dress. “Miriam, I have been a coward and a villain to you, but I repent—indeed I repent. For years I have been seeking to make atonement. Have mercy on me and save me, for it is in your power to make me a better man.”
She stood there, gazing sadly down upon him; and if ever woman wore a saint-like expression on this earth, it was Miriam Carr as she stood before me then. She, too, seemed to ignore my presence, and her voice was very sweet and low as she replied:
“Take my forgiveness, John Lister, and with it my prayers shall be joined to yours that yours may be a better and a happier life.”
“And you will grant my prayer, Miriam? You will be my wife?” he whispered, as I sat back there with an intense feeling of misery, almost jealousy, coming over me. I felt a terrible sense of dread, too, for I could not believe in the sincerity of John Lister’s repentance, and in imagination I saw the woman whom I loved and reverenced torn down from the pedestal whereon she stood in my heart, to become ordinary, weak, and poor.
“You ask me to forget the past and to be your wife, John Lister,” she said, and the tones of her sweet low voice thrilled me as she spoke, “I have heard you patiently, and I tell you now that had you been true to me, I would have been your patient, loving, faithful wife unto the end. I would have crushed down the strange yearnings that sought to grow within my heart, for I told myself that you loved me dearly, and that I would love you in return.”
“Yes, yes,” he whispered, cowering lower before her; “you were all that is good and true, and I was base; but, Miriam, I have repented so bitterly of my sin.”
“When I found that you did not love me, John Lister, but that it was only a passing fancy fed by the thought of my wealth—”
“Oh, no, no, no! I was not mercenary,” he cried.
“Is your repentance no more sincere than that?” she said sadly; “I know but too well, John Lister, that you loved my fortune better than you loved me.”
“Oh, Miriam!” he exclaimed appealingly.
“Hear my answer!” she said, speaking as if she had not caught his last words.
“Yes,” he cried, striving to catch her hand, but without success. “It is life or death to me. I cannot live without your love.”
“John Lister,” she said, and every tone of her sweet pure voice seemed to ring through the stillness of that room as I realised more and more the treasure he had cast away. “You are a young man yet, and you may live to learn what the love of a woman really is. Once given, it is beyond recall. The tender plant I would have given, you crushed beneath your heel. That love, as it sprang up again, I gave to Stephen Hallett, who holds it still.”
He started from her with a look of awe upon his face, as she crossed her hands upon her breast and stood looking upward: “For he is not dead, but sleeping; and I—I am waiting for the time when I may join him, where the weary are at rest.”
She ceased speaking, and John Lister slowly rose from his knee, white with disappointment and rage, for he had anticipated an easy conquest.
He looked at her, as she was standing with her eyes closed, and a rapt expression of patient sorrow upon her beautiful face. Then, turning to me with a furiously vindictive look upon his face, he clenched his fists.
“This is your doing,” he hissed; “but my day will come, Antony Grace, and then we’ll see.”
He rushed from the room, choking with impotent fury, and nearly running against Hetty, who was coming in.
I was frightened, for there was a strange look in Miriam Carr’s face, and I caught her hands in mine.
“Send for help, Hetty,” I cried excitedly; “she is ill.”
“No, no,” Miss Carr answered, unclosing her eyes; “I often feel like that. Hetty, dear, help me to my room; I shall be better there.”
I hastened to hold the door open as Miriam Carr went towards it, leaning on Hetty’s arm, and as they reached me Miss Carr turned, placed her arms round my neck, and kissed me tenderly as a mother might her son. Then, as I stood there gazing through a veil of tears at which I felt no shame, the words that I had heard her utter seemed to weigh me down with a burden of sorrow that seemed greater than I could bear. I felt as if a dark cloud was coming down upon my life, and that dark cloud came, for before a year had passed away, Hetty and I—by her father’s dying wish, young wife and young husband—stood together looking down upon the newly planted flowers close beside poor Hallett’s grave.
It was soft and green, but the flowers and turf looked fresh, as the simple white cross looked new with its deeply cut letters, clear, but dim to our eyes as we read the two words—
“Miriam Carr.”
The End.
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Chapter 1
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Chapter 2
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Chapter 3
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Chapter 4
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Chapter 5
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Chapter 6
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Chapter 7
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Chapter 8
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Chapter 9
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Chapter 10
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Chapter 11
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Chapter 12
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Chapter 13
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Chapter 14
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Chapter 15
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Chapter 16
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Chapter 17
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Chapter 18
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Chapter 19
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Chapter 20
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Chapter 21
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Chapter 22
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Chapter 23
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Chapter 24
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Chapter 25
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Chapter 26
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Chapter 27
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Chapter 28
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Chapter 29
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Chapter 30
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Chapter 31
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Chapter 32
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Chapter 33
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Chapter 34
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Chapter 35
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Chapter 36
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Chapter 37
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Chapter 38
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Chapter 39
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Chapter 40
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Chapter 41
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Chapter 42
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Chapter 43
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Chapter 44
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Chapter 45
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Chapter 46
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Chapter 47
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Chapter 48
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Chapter 49
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Chapter 50
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Chapter 51
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Chapter 52
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Chapter 53
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Chapter 54
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Chapter 55
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Chapter 56
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Chapter 57
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Chapter 58
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Chapter 59
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Chapter 60
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Chapter 61
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Chapter 62
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